


Vegas Lights

by FeathersMcStrange



Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: Cities, Developing Friendships, Drabble, Gen, Las Vegas, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-10 09:04:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6949807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeathersMcStrange/pseuds/FeathersMcStrange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This city scares Sara, with the way it seems almost alive, always just poised ready to consume her the moment she lets her guard drop.</p>
<p>(Sara thinks about Las Vegas early season one, Catherine is confused and concerned)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vegas Lights

**Author's Note:**

> Part of a series of drabbles based off a prompt list on tumblr found here: http://aromanticgcallen.tumblr.com/post/144666238426/obscure-feelings-drabble-prompt-meme, characters assigned by my lovely friend V
> 
> Prompt: Sonder
> 
> Character(s): Sara Sidle
> 
> See note at bottom for additional warnings.

> **SONDER:** The realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own.

"This city could swallow me whole." Sara's voice is low and not very strong, drifting across the front of the car. Her eyes are directed out to the city in question, forehead bumping softly against the window glass. "I could step out onto those streets and just. Disappear."

"Are you okay?" From the driver's seat, Catherine's question is blunt and straight to the point. "That was awfully morbid." She makes a face, thinking of what, exactly, she and Sara do for a living. Catherine snorts. Morbid in comparison to what.

Sara, hearing the quiet sound of amusement and mistaking it for a reaction to her, frowns across at Catherine before directing her attention back to the metropolitan behemoth looming up around them. Glass glitters in the harsh glare of the lights bejeweling the strip like the sequined costume of a casino dancer. The throng of people crowding the sidewalks press on in an anonymous horde that is enough to make a prickle of claustrophobia go up Sara's spine.

"There are just..." Sara trails off, wondering how ridiculous she probably sounds right now, talking about a city like it's some kind of mythic monster she's afraid is gonna attack her the moment she turns her back on it. As if that isn't exactly the way she feels sometimes, like the city is waiting for her to let her guard down, waiting for its opportunity. "I'm just adjusting to being in a new place, that's all. There's a lot of people here."

Catherine keeps her eyes on the road as she spins the steering wheel, guiding the car around a corner. The pressure of eye contact is off Sara's shoulders, and she appreciates it.

"San Francisco's hardly a small country town," Catherine comments casually, a response to Sara's subpar backpedal about Las Vegas's size.

"Something about this place just feels bigger. I think it's all the tourists, all these people coming and going. Lots of anonymity here. Lot of ways a person can get lost, and nobody knows they're gone."

All these people thronging the sidewalk in the balmy Nevada night wire, every one of them with their own complex existence, their own histories and plans, triumphs and tragedies, and this city cares for not a one of them. There is a way Vegas feels alive and cognizant, a way San Francisco didn't, a way Sara can't explain. She thinks about the scene they are headed to now and the body there, the dead man that greeted her that first day here, about Holly Gribbs on her first case.

Sara shudders and looks away, back at Catherine, and hopes these people, the bonds she's forming here, will be enough to keep this city from consuming her completely.

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: references to death/murder


End file.
